Ganked » Mangala Undocked

Happy Birthday EVE

May 062013

While EVE is 10 today – the 6th May 2013 – Sunday the 5th May saw the highest Peak Concurrent User count in 2 years occur. 65,303 pilots logged into the game to mine, rat, ship spin, trade, scam, and most of all pvp. I myself like to think I encouraged some 250 of them to log in and attend the 67th Ganked. This was a frigate & destroyer hull themed roam that as well as rampaging all on its own, would be shooting a Nyx piloted by Marlona Sky.

As the system for the Nyx event was to be announced on the day, I had the roam form up in Rens, which turned out to be very fortuitous in that it was 8 jumps or so from the event system, so we changed plans slightly and moved a few hulls over to Floseswin to allow us to be better prepared for any losses suffered while helping take the Nyx down later. While moving ships we scored a few kills in the low sec systems along the way, and even back in Rens.

Following this, we roamed into null sec, not really getting any fun out of it at all. A few bombers that got some dudes, and in turn got killed as well but pretty much all we found was dead space. We then got word from CCP Foxfour that the Devs would be roaming and so we bounced back to Empire and waited.

CCP FoxFour > How big is your fleet and where is it?

CCP FoxFour > LETS DO THIS!

We did not have to wait for long. The Dev’s appeared in Brin, and so we moved out that way, tidi-ing every system we passed through severely, 180-200+ pilots will do that it seems in low sec. Watching the Devs stream we saw them bounce into Todifraun and so in we went, to find them already engaged by a MUCH smaller group of frigates. And so we joined the battle.

I called all our favourite Devs and one by one they were caught and they died. Then I did my usual and burned out of range, so House then Mirror and others stepped to the plate and called more of them too. Eventually CCP were overwhelmed by both us and the never ending “others” streaming into the system. I think we did damn well! Yes it shows kills only, and I think some randoms are missing, but thats how Ganked rolls. Also even evekill shows no losses!

Then it was time to head to Floseswin for the main event.

I can only really say “OH BOY”.

The system was crammed with over 2000 pilots. Most of whom wanted to shoot the Nyx, and others who wanted to shoot everyone else or even rep the Nyx. All rather interesting under 10% tidi. Eventually the frigate dps could not break the remote reps hitting the Nyx and Marlona set it to self destruct. 20 minutes later, we had two killmails. Here are some images from the system by RvB member Zibbal:

Brave Newbies had been inviting all of Floseswin local to theirs for an afterparty, so around 80 of the Ganked fleet ran over and played around with them for a while until the day caught up with us and we needed sleep. All in all yet another awesome day, made even more spectacular by the fight with CCP, the excellent Nyx event and of course EVE being on the cusp of its 10th birthday.

And setting another Ganked kill record too, 300+ kills over the course of the roam!

It was a day I am proud to say “I was there”

While all this was happening, over in “robe & wizard hat” territory, a SOCT representative was addressing CONCORD in Yulai about the past 10 years:

And so, with the strike of ten, it begins.

Children of New Eden. Welcome.

Ten years ago, a sudden advance in technological capabilty heralded a new dawn for the people of New Eden. It brought about a new age for the human race.

The result, was all of you.

Capsuleers. The Empyreans. The first generation of post-humans.

The Society of Conscious Thought has watched your development over the course of the last ten years.

We have watched you, the Empyreans, develop from a small group of promising individuals who sucessfully made the transition into posthumanism a decade ago, into a faction of your own.

A faction strong enough to create your own empires. A faction strong enough to govern and manage yourselves, albeit via methods through which the Society of Conscious Thought has not always approved.

However, in the same respect, the cluster has been witness to how the perception of life and death, and the value of such concepts, can become twisted by those whom become alienated from their grasp.

We have watched you create, build, and nurture, while at the same time we have watched you burn, crush and destroy the dreams of trillions.

The very existance of the capsuleer is a paradox.

You are those who no longer know the meaning of death, defeated in battle only to rise again, reborn.

For ten years, the Society of Conscious Thought has monitored your progress since the flood gates opened at the dawn of the Empyrean Age.

We watched as the immortal children of New Eden took their first steps into the void. We watched as you first spread your wings, and reached for the heavens.

We have watched you colonize, create, and grow, and at the same time we have watched you shatter entire worlds, tear down empires and crush those whom would oppose you.

The Society of Conscious Thought comes to you today with a message, and a gift.

Tomorrow, we will gift every capsuleer in New Eden a Gnosis-class Society of Conscious Thought designed battlecruiser, and with it, we relay the following message:

Our message to you is simple.

Tomorrow, the Second Decade of the Empyrean Age dawns.

Tomorrow, we embark on the next stage of our journey.

Children of New Eden, Empyreans… accept our gift, and realise your true potential.

Before I go into the many & varied prizes, I think you should all watch this video by delonewolf, it really is amazing and expresses so well how many of us feel about this game that has kept us engaged for so long:

And now, prizes.

First off we have the prizes provided by our regular sponsors – SomerBlink:

Scouting Distinction – Inty Pack (1 of each interceptor) x3 (Sarkis Udoka, William Hazard, Jamie Banks)

Most Pods – Purifier x2 (Val ona)

Spot Prizes – Worm x5 – 1 each (Thecla Elarik, Calbary, Zibbal, Cloudwolfe, Little George)

Combat Distinction – Gila x3 – 1 each (tgl3, alphastarpilot, Andre27) - Generally doing good things like stepping up or scramming CCP Rise!

Combat Excellence – Navy Megathron x1 (Macgyver 3rd) – highest of our fleet on the Nyx & Marlonas Pod!

These will be forthcoming from a representative of Somerblink this week.

Secondly we have the prizes donated by the Angeli Mortis alliance:

2 Navy Comets – 1 each (Fork Off, a1tra Ural) – Fork for being Persistant & a1tra for this image
2 Navy Vexors – 1 each (Calintor, Azula Kishtar) – Calintor for public contracts & Azula for top damage on Fozzie.
1 Navy Dominix (SaintCav) – Final Blow on Marlona’s pod

Finally, Ganked attendee Carathas donated 2 billion isk for prizes related to podding & being the MVP of the roam, here are my chosen winners roughly following Carathas’ conditions:

Quinten Sarn – 1 billion isk for getting the final blow on CCP Fozzie

Andrew Butcher – 750 million isk for the most kills during the roam

MirrorGod – 250 million isk for being pretty damn useful during the day!

FC’s Note:

We had over the course of yesterday some 350 people cycle in and out of the fleet, with maybe 150 of them being people new to RvB Ganked or even PVP in general, and I feel that they all enjoyed the time they spent with us. This is down to all of you who come to ganked regularly and make it what it is. Thanks.

Bigger thanks from me for making the past (nearly) 2 years of my EVE life something really special.

Mangala

Get your kicks on 66

EVE, Fcing, Ganked, RVB 2 Responses »

Apr 222013

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

This weekends 66th numbered RvB Ganked roam was themed on Ventures, mostly because I think the number 66 evokes a sense of adventure for many, mostly thanks to references about the famous Route 66 highway littered throughout pop culture.

We formed up around 75 people in fleet – the majority in Ventures. Our initial jump into Akora saw us warp to a cyno when suddenly FCON lands in a BC down fleet, and we have a go. However their logistics proved too solid for the dps of our ventures to break, so we bailed, reshipped our losses into “mostly” Ventures and went out again.

People who make no mistakes lack boldness and the spirit of adventure.

We burned through lowsec finding random things to shoot, especially this rupture which didn’t try to run or even burn back to gate. Eventually we rolled into Amamake and mooched around for a while, killing a couple of smartbomb fit BS that we did not actually land on, and had plenty of time to warp out because of our “amazing” lock range. Following this we took a bounce into Seaside (Siseide) and had a good scrap at the FW IHUB there including a reship and a return. Lots of kills were had for sure.

Now my plan had been to burn us to Rahadalon to fight Brave Newbies and we still did this, but with less Venture’s present, however this did not stop us getting over an hour of good fights out of the Newbies. I will let the videos from that section speak for themselves:

Overall it was a stunning night, we never left lowsec and we had so many fun fights along the way. A lot of us gave up a bit of sec status but it was worth it. As for not having our usual 120+ I think that having to train Mining Frigate to 1 put many people off attending – their loss as it turned out! Oh and that little thing known as Burn Jita.

We set a new Ganked kill record too, 283 kills in a single roam.

Adventure is just bad planning.

Somer.Blink has been – as of this roam – sponsoring RvB Ganked for 1 year & 45 roams. They have generously provided over 50 billion isk in prizes to attendee’s of these roams, although thats not why you all show up right? Anyway, this roam was no different and we had the following winners:

Scouting Distinction – Inty Pack (Crow, Stiletto, Taranis, Malediction) x3 & Buzzard+Probes+Launcher x3 – (Green Gambit, Major Floor, Combat Mink)

Most Pods – Hound x2 & Sabre x1 – (Fynmar Azaph)

Spot Prizes – Daredevil x5 – (RRISNER, Sascha Naskingar, Weedmasta, Melkor Valor, Jakob Anedalle), Dramiel x5 – (Local009, Codename Par, Andre27, Sally Shepard, Horus H’kaan)

Combat Distinction – Vigilant x2 – (Hackbert, Luckyccs), Cynabal x2 – (Tragot Gomndor, VonSpaky)

Combat Excellence – Vindicator x1 – (Andrew Butcher)

Masha’Fozzie

EVE, Fcing, Ganked, RVB No Responses »

Apr 032013

The most beloved of places to Fozzie are the shipyards

As anyone who has been playing EVE since the summer has noticed, there has been a bountiful presence at work when it comes to the balancing of ships, and that presence is CCP Fozzie, and because I have found a new love for EVE due to the gifts he has bestowed upon us, I thought why not run Ganked 63 in honour of his munificence.

The roam would be a multi part roam involving cruisers, battlecruisers & destroyers changed or added since Fozzie transcended to CCP.

And whosoever puts his trust in Fozzie, then He will suffice him

We started after down time on Easter Sunday with a cruiser roam, which saw a nice mix of rebalanced cruisers take the field. A run around the Amarr-Minmatar Faction Warfare area got us a small fight with the Amarrians, before we decided low sec space was too quiet for a holiday weekend and made best speed for Geminate & points north. While moving through Geminate, the days ubermencsh scout Roigon suggested that Thecla take a detour into QKTR-L. Thecla then exclaimed he had found a Thanatos in space. He got to work finding it while the fleet held next door praying furiously to Fozzie, begging him to shine his light upon us. It was then that Thecla called a tackle on the Thanatos.

Then fight in the cause of Fozzie, and know that Fozzie Heareth and knoweth all things

Fozzie had smiled upon us. The Thanatos died, along with the “rats” he had been killing in his site. He also paid 500 million ISK to one of our members, who tried to ransom the pilot. Shame he told us about the ransom AFTER the Thanatos exploded.

The remainder of part one was very quiet, until we received intel of a fight in X-7OMU potentially involving lots of capital ships. So we scrambled there pretty fast with a couple of kills being scored along the way. However upon jumping in, it was apparent that Fozzie had chosen to punish us for our hubris over the Thanatos kill earlier. We found many cyno fields with fleet after fleet being bridged in, and only our fleet as a potential target. We sought redemption in the only way we could, and died gloriously in the name of Fozzie.

Those who believe, and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Fozzie: for without doubt in the remembrance of Fozzie do hearts find rest.

After a short break the second part of the roam moved out, this time in Battlecruisers. A slight detour to Rahadalon to visit Brave Newbies Inc did not get any glorious combat for us to demonstrate more of our love for Fozzie, so we moved onto Providence. Where, excepting a few bombers, we really did not find much to shoot. That is until Corebloodbrothers a fellow CSM 8 Candidate contacted me and asked for a fight, to which I agreed. We fought in G7AQ-7, and while we were outgunned & out logisticed, we fought and died with the name of Fozzie on our lips.

The Prophet said, ‘A single endeavor of fighting in Fozzie’s Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it.

The final section of this roam-cum-festival of worship was lead by Greygal from Agony Unleashed. The theme was Destroyers & Frigates. We wandered into Curse and eventually Catch, finding nothing that would willingly engage our small group of ships. Even HED-GP was a dead end, until Fozzie provided an aggressed Navy Dominix. However the Dominix had friends who cyno’d in to support it. Yes, Init had arrived to test the patience of the Faithful. Infidels. Following this Greygal moved us towards NOL- in Delve, with a blinky gang that got in our way in low sec space allowing us to demonstrate the supremacy of our faith once more! And then before we knew it, we were in NOL- and we found HBC, CFC and others. We fought a few of each until we died.

The night was over, our faith had been proven repeatedly throughout all day long with the final tally being 116 souls reclaimed for Fozzie.

Let those fight in the way of Fozzie who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Fozzie, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.

As usual Somer Blink sponsored prizes during the roam, and here are the names of those upon whom the light of Fozzie shone:

Inty Packs (2 each of: Stiletto, Crow, Malediction, Taranis): Green Gambit, Xenos Wiggin, luckyccs, roigon, kaeda maxwell

Dramiels: Ivoto, Mourning Souls, Astrox Tadaruwa

Daredevils: roigon, Zao Amadues, DocFloyd

Succubii: FishySquirrel, Mal Crichton, Cathach

Cruors: House2Twist, Trinneth, Patchouli Airuta

Phantasms: roigon, Ne’Rubis Tanthalas, Mexicantis

Cynabals: Thecla Elarik, Jim Hammond, Butch Cassidy

Universal Remote

EVE, Fcing, Ganked, RVB No Responses »

Mar 252013

Not long after I returned from warmer climes, Daneel linked a video of a gang of RR vexors having an incredible time:

This excellent video got me to thinking about how well – or not – this would translate into a Ganked theme with 100 pilots or more rocking similar ships. And so I announced that the 62nd RvB Ganked would be using this theme. Its name: Universal Remote. This roam went out into the wilds of EVE last night.

Before we did that though, we found something to do during the form up when I noticed a Rhea slow boating away from our meet up station. He was obviously afk. I shall leave Daneel Trevize to sum up the little slice of fun that followed this discovery:

There once was a Rhea in space,
who’d drifted right off his home base;
a Ganked gank fleet was formed,
of sec hits they were warned;
then they busted a nut in his face…

The End

Now it being hisec, we generated A LOT of CONCORD.

We then shipped into our RR vexors – and assorted other ships – and got the night going. TG found us a couple of drakes in an anomaly in Akora, so we grabbed them, repped them, killed their rats, then killed them. They took it very well – one of them shot me a brief convo and asked who was repping them, why and did we plan to kill them. No tears or anything. Love players like that.

Geminate beckoned next, and except for a fun fight in EOA- & me making Neil Patrick Harris jokes everytime we entered NBPH- it was very quiet, despite numerous groups living there. One day it will pick up I am sure. Anyway, we kept heading north wandering into Vale then Tribute which saw us spend a while tussling with a Razor gang in and around IMK- & G9D- (note to the bombers, check our range before bombing in future!) before moving off towards HD- which had been the scene of “something”. We also saw a TEST frigate & destroyer gang along the way, but they would not hang around and shoot us. However this Vigilant pilot did, so we repped him until everyone possible had whored onto the mail. Look at that damage taken!!!

The end of the night came with a whelp to Nulli in HD-, who brought pretty much a perfect counter to our fleet, and that was that.

A different theme to normal, that certainly works well for small gangs, and given a better opportunity could have worked well for us, but regardless it was great fun! All in all we scored around 11.5 billion isk in damage over 80 kills, with 6 billion or so being the Rhea. And more importantly Ganked passed its 5000th kill milestone. GO US!!!!!

Vidya:

+ More to Follow.

As with roams for nearly the past year, the roam had prizes sponsored by Somer.Blink and the winners of this weeks prizes were:

Scouting Distinction – Helios+Launcher+Probes x3 (1 each) (TGL3, Roigon, Green Gambit)

Most Pods – Eris x1 (FishySquirrel)

Spot Prizes – Fed Navy Comet x10 (1 each) (Xenos Wiggin, Zenghar Zandoken (wins 2), House2Twist, Meita Way, Diadem Eltanin, Tothebone Bad, Butch Cassidy, Scooby Dooby Doo, Cobbler Rotineque (Ganked Cherry!))

Combat Distinction – Vigilant x3 (1 each) (Reek Star, Lodavier, Daneel Trevize)

Combat Excellence – Navy Dominix x1 (Hegia Rilemack Opper (Got Gankeds 5000th Kill))

Heretic – Exequeror Navy Issue x1 (Aegis Kashniir)

Congratulations to you all!!

I go, I come back.

Fail, Fcing, Ganked, RVB No Responses »

Mar 052013

So I went on vacation, had a great time and then I came back to lead Ganked 59: Wulfpax, this past Sunday.

The chosen theme was purely destroyers, with no specific range or set-up.

We formed up in Stacmon with the intent of a roam through Syndicate, and the surrounding lowsec space, however Alphastarpilot from the HBC convoed me to let me know he also had a destroyer gang forming and would we want to fight? I put it to the fleet and despite some wariness they went for it. So after a little delay due to some douches trying – and failing (they killed like 10 ships) – to smart bomb the fleet in highsec, we moved out as fast we could to the target system, although fast is probably too polite a term, given that the server through tidi & traffic control tried its best to slow us down.

An uneventful run to B-D saw us regroup on the gate before it, and then once 170 or so of us were there, I called for us to jump in and hold cloak as the HBC gang was set-up ready for us. And right as I jumped it, things went south for my client – total lock up despite everything being either off or set low. Luckily others stepped up and FC’d the fleet while I waited to get back in, and Ganked took over 100 names in that one fight! Although one of those names was mine, shamelessly killed before I got back into the fleet, BY MY OWN FLEET!

Here is the kill board views of this fight:

http://rvbganked.co.uk/kills/index.php/kill_related/9598/

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=16639604

Take a look at these two videos from that fight, both from the HBC point of view – I prefer Bagehi’s as it has comms on it:

Most folks did not survive that, however several got out and made their way back to Stacmon to rejoin the rest of us. These people had assistance from both our regular scouts and Andre27, who lead them out scoring a Sabre kill along the way.

Following a short break & reship period, we headed back out following my original plan, but we did not find much at all. We arrived 30 seconds too late to crash someone else’s party, although did snag an Armageddon & a Damnation. After this, we got a tip off that some potential bads could be found in Aridia, so we burned in that direction, only for them not to come out and play despite our best efforts. We had a similar situation with a carrier in Shafrak – again in Aridia – that was missioning, its pilot wised up to us and docked depriving us of a kill.

As it was late, we made the decision to power down to Delve and find a whelp. We did so. One side of a gate was a Brack Region Muninn gang, the other-side a Goon Rupture gang, we hit the Goon gang dropping a Claymore & some support before they started bailing as the BL gang came in and pretty much cleaned us out.

And that was pretty much that. My first night back was over, with us snagging 187 kills, nearly beating my personal best Ganked record of 189 kills.

As ever the roam was sponsored by Somer.Blink.

Scouting Distinction – Helios+Probes+Launcher x3 (Green Gambit, Roigon, Thecla Elarik)

Corpse Collector (Most Pod Kills) – Sabre x2 (Macgyver 3rd)

Spot Prizes – Daredevil x5 (Daneel Trevize, Longdrinks (First Final Blow on First Proper kill of the night), Melkor Valor, Ahmed Ibn Rustah, Alphastarpilot (for giving us a good fight!))

Combat Distinction – Cynabal x3 (MirrorGod, Andre27, PVDNS77)

Combat Excellence – Navy Megathron x1 (Kadesch47)

Heretic – Caracal Navy Issue x1 (Crynsos Cealion)

Prizes will be contracted to the winners this week by a representative of the Somer.Blink group.

NB: Except for the Sabre’s, these prizes are 1 hull to each winner.

Shaft!

EVE, Fcing, Ganked, RVB No Responses »

Jan 092013

This past weekend, RvB Ganked started 2013 in style!

We gathered over 150 pilots, with the majority handling the majestic Gallente hull known as the Thorax.

As part of the evening we would be visiting the EVE Gate in New Eden, as I go once a year and had decided that this year I would drag the Ganked crowd along with me. People were oddly receptive to it, mostly as they had never been.

I just did not think that when we arrived, we would do this – much thanks to MirrorGod for FCing the creation of this:

Even stranger was that despite us being in low sec the night got even more fun the longer we spent there. Given the remoteness of the region, people could come to us from various directions, and one such pilot – Alex Arcannis - approached us from the Gonditsa area, informing us that he was killed & podded in Sapthar. A couple of pilots shoot ahead of us with Amy Rioz landing a point on one of Alex killers, however we manage to TIDI & Traffic Control on our jump in and the targets get away, except as they get away a guardian jumps into us and is ended rather quickly. Meanwhile at the other end of Genesis, Phantom was rushing to meet us through the Chej area when he reports a largish BC/BS heavy gang of flashies, resulting us doing an immediate about face and running over as fast as we could. We formed up one jump out, chucked House & a bait squad in – little did I know this squad contained a Deimos – and the flashies ran, so House chased them into Noranim, tackled a bunch and called us in. Seeing what a bag of thorax’s can do is amazing.

More amazing than that however is the lack of smack the locals gave us, hell just the fact they stood and fought was enough to make us like them, the smack thing was just icing on the cake. Much respect to the pilots of D3vil’s Childr3n.

And so we moved on, getting back on to our route which would see us move towards null sec, however that plan soon hit the rocks. We heard tell of another logi supported gang over in Korridi and moved that way to wave our Thorax’s at them, we managed to snag a hurricane at first, before we heard the main gang that was sat on a station had warped to the Bantish gate were we had a few guys. Daneel gave us a great plan to deal with them which resulted in a dead guardian swiftly followed by their fleet jumping into Bantish.

Right into the remainder of our band of dongs.

Tackles were gotten, primaries called and the fight was on. Except for me, as I was primaried.

MirrorGod stepped to the plate and before I had gotten back in a new hull, the fight was over. We had shot our (dps) loads all over the enemy, then leaned back and lit a cigarette like a properly sated guy following a session like that.

For a while we tussled with the locals in Gonditsa, but they were more interested in smacking us for being bads, or wannabe Goons etc, instead of demonstrating their so called pvp prowess and pewing us all down. Got to love people like that don’t you. Anyway, Rote Kapelle turned up to show them how it was done – after asking me for our location – it was a fun fight with friendly gf’s thrown in local after. The few that survived even joined our roam including e-famous blogger: Ripard Teg.

Before we milked Genesis dry of fun fights, I had us move out towards Fountain, however Aridia and even Fountain proved to be pretty quiet, so we started to head into Delve with the intention of burning fast towards Aridia and then Genesis again – as why not go back to the fights after giving the locals time to recover! However that plan was soon put to rest when we got word of a TEST gang in ZXB, the FC of which was listening in on the Ganked comms. After a little “chat” between myself and their FC, they jumped to us and we fought hard, and long, however our stamina just wasnt up to it and we found ourselves dieing in droves. We still took a few with us though!

After 5 hours, 4 of which had been spent having a ball in Genesis low-sec, this whelp was the incentive we needed to roll over and go to sleep.

All in all 115 kills at over 10 billion isk in value was the evenings tally. Quite successful!

Vidya:

Posted Image

As ever the roam was sponsored by Somer.Blink, and here are the prizes & the winners of said prizes:

Scouting Distinction – Helios/Launcher/Probes x3 (Thecla Elarik, Wulfrunner, Captain Hurrdurr)

Corpse Collector – Eris (Kingzan – not most pods, but easily for most expensive pod killed!)

Spot Prizes – Fed Navy Comet x10 (GatesMcTaste, Westar Egdald, Alex Arcannis, Amy Rioz, Matt Cooper, Ceofore Aideron, SaintCav, Crynsos Cealion, Alexandros Balfros, Xi Tzu)

Combat Distinction – Vigilant x3 (House2twist – FCing that first good fight, MirrorGod – For the “art” at the EVE Gate, Geozor – topping campaign points)

Combat Excellence – Megathron Navy Issue (Nutjob O’Crazy – topping campaign kills)

Heretic – Osprey Navy Issue (Furious Lao)

Bounty TGL3

EVE, Fcing, Ganked, RVB No Responses »

Dec 292012

Xmas. A time for food, family & beer. And for presents.

At some stage during the conga portion of Ganked: All I Got For Xmas, it came to our attention that TGL3 had only gotten sweets for xmas:

And our fleet being what it was – pretty drunk already – the decision was made to give him ISK for further xmas gifts, however we did it incorrectly. Instead we kept adding to his bounty, so much so that before we departed Rens in our Kitchen Sink fleet of Doom, he had around 500million isk on his head. As the night progressed we spammed “Bounty TGL3″ in every system we entered.

For the evenings fun, I had settled on a roam into Providence & Catch and maybe further depending on the fights we would get in those regions, and so we came in through G-5EN2 and bimbled down to the pocket below KBP7-G with the result being we found targets. Plenty of them! Including a bunch of bombers that actually did for a fair few of us – luckily they reshipped via Dital and came right back! After this small engagement, we started moving back towards central Providence, however Yulai Federation and some other “holders” were ahead of us, although they proved more of a speed bump than an actual fight. Still more fun than Providence has been of late!

And the fun didn’t stop here, we carried on towards Catch when Green let us know there was a Darkside Cynabal gang around, after killing their link loki, we jumped in and tried to lock down as many as we could although they still had tengu boosts and so proved very hard to pin down – they also killed most of our tackle. We did get a couple of them though. Losing most of our tackle gave us pause to leg it back to Assah and reform so we did, having an extended bio along the way. Around an hour later we had once again moved into Provi when we saw a small group of ships just jumping into 4B-NQN as we landed, and oddly we had no scouts in 4B- so we jumped in hoping to catch them, however that did not go as well as I had hoped. We jumped into an Oracle heavy TEST gang who pretty much cleaned our clocks. However the last laugh was on us as they went on to be Pipe-Bombed by RnK!

Us being us, we reshipped and merged with the Agony alumni roam that was also out, and went back out. And once again the Provi “holders” had a fleet up that we fought. A seriously fun fight! However the locals had a reshipping advantage that we just couldnt match. Once again we had found explosions and been beaten. But not bowed.

Out again we went, this time towards Curse, however it proved much more boring than Providence. With the only fight being as we had all but given up – and even then it was a fight against a BC heavy gang with Scimi support. Was over pretty fast. And that was the night over with as well.

Overall Providence was very entertaining, much respect to Severance, Yulai Federation and all the other “holders” we encountered, you really made it interesting for us!

Normally I would mention Blink here and list the prizes they sponsored, however for this roam I did not organise anything what with it being Xmas, however Carathas – a regular Ganked attendee – provided many hulls for me to offer up, and so here goes:

Cynabal: Khador Vess
Cynabal: Macgyver 3rd

Daredevil: Lodavier
Daredevil: Crynsos Cealion

Dramiel: Nutjob O’Crazy
Dramiel: Caterpil

Slicer: Rob Cobb
Slicer: Masterflaps
Slicer: GatesMcTaste
Slicer: Spochz Tyrnium
Slicer: Sabbort

Firetail: Rob Cobb
Firetail: GatesMcTaste
Firetail: GC003
Firetail: Phantom OfKrankor
Firetail: Major Cromwell

Hookbill: GatesMcTaste
Hookbill: Spochz Tyrnium
Hookbill: afafahsgs Trild
Hookbill: Phantom OfKrankor
Hookbill: Major Cromwell

Comet: Masterflaps
Comet: GatesMcTaste
Comet: afafahsgs Trild
Comet: Raynor Dirtnap
Comet: Sephira Galamore

And for those wondering TGL3′s bounty made it to:

School’s Out

Fcing, Ganked, RVB 1 Response »

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!)

The Need for Speed

Fcing, Ganked, RVB 1 Response »

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)

Give it all you got

EVE, Fcing, Ganked, RVB 6 Responses »

Oct 072012

& bring in all your ships.

After a short hiatus due to the recent EVE meet down in London – see TGL3′s blog for more on that – Ganked returned last night. It was both the 40th Ganked, and the first of 3 roams to celebrate RvB’s third birthday. Originally I had planned that the theme would be based on the results of this poll, however Daneel Trevize had suggested a “max dps” theme, were we bring as much gank as possible, and I liked the idea so much that I ran with it.

And what a night it was.

Met up in Rens, had the usual conga shenanigans with a little can flip idiocy thrown in for good measure resulting in Blue Rep members being able to get this kill. Then we were off. Had a speed bump of some Eternal Evocations guys in lowsec, however not all of them went flashy on our broadsword, so we only got a couple of them. After jumping into G-5EN2 we got word of a sizeable Red Alliance Tier 3 gang over in 9-F, however they would not jump into us, and their use of spais – ON THE LEAST SECURE COMMS IN EVE WITH PILOTS WHO DON’T REALLY CARE WHEN WE DIE, JUST HOW (GG RED, GG. All of EVE remembers you when you were good!) – prevented us getting successful cloaky warpins, so we just moved past them and right onto a Black Ops Hot drop performed by Russian Thunder Squad, members of -A-. Our bait vindicator worked wonders. Their blops drop failed amazingly, in that we traded 1 Vindicator – that Green got for free – for a few Black Ops BS.

WIN!

I still do not know what exactly those pilots thought they could achieve. Yes, like 2 managed to escape, but that is only because traffic control caught a few of our tacklers & bubblers. Regardless, at that point it felt really good to be back in the Ganked saddle.

And then we were off again, rolling over a CVA gang that was sat at 0 on a gate, and did not cross jump us even when I and a handful of others killed a sabre of theirs that had cross jumped. By the time I got into ERVK-P, the CVA gang was dead, or had ran away really fast. Except for 1 Lachesis that logged WITH aggression and was probed down and killed by us. God knows how the dumb manage to dress themselves in the morning. Speaking of dumb, we crashed a Legio gate-camp later on which did not warp off despite most likely knowing we were coming, and also being in one of the few systems they live in.

We started to spiral down towards the Catch/Stain border, however while idling in QETZ-W, local started spiking with -A- and their various pets, so we jumped into BUZ-DB, hit the station, killed some stuff, bubbled it and waited. And waited. And waited. And then the drake+scimi fleet they had landed in our bubbles and it was on.

IT WAS GLORIOUS!

House & myself switched calling roles, with Dan and others helping out on warpins when needed & the majority of the fleet focusing on primaries when told, grabbing points and generally not being terrible, which warmed my cold bitter heart. As a group we calmly took down targets as called, or as they presented themselves as new primaries – why hello there Mr Scimitar – without much comms clutter or even your FC doing a good impression of a rabbit caught in headlights. While we did end up dead – around 100 of us were still going by this point – we out performed ourselves massively in terms of how we did in the whelp section of the roam. Overall, I was and still am, very impressed & can happily say that fight really helped me find my love for FCing and EVE once again. Now if only I would undock more.

And then it was 2 AM UK time and it was all over. As the dust settled we had done around 14 billion isk in damage with 130+ kills to our name. Pretty epic night considering I did the whole thing SOBER and that I ran out of smokes around 11 PM UK.

One last word before videos and prizes, however I shall let fleet chat from towards the end of the night say it for me (& my ego):

[ 2012.10.07 00:11:34 ] lolololol01 > we did amazingly well against all those logi lol. was quite suprised
[ 2012.10.07 00:12:08 ] Whisp3r > thx for fleet and fun
[ 2012.10.07 00:12:30 ] Caterpil > Thanks for the fleet :)
[ 2012.10.07 00:12:32 ] macH eoN > cheers guys o7
[ 2012.10.07 00:12:48 ] Alayna Le’line > Thanks guys, fun as usual o7
[ 2012.10.07 00:13:30 ] Shish Tukay > fun night, heading home now, bye guys o/
[ 2012.10.07 00:13:33 ] Geo Vent > I’m off. Thanks for a fun evening Mangala Solaris
[ 2012.10.07 00:13:37 ] Sir Yohnny > GF guys…
[ 2012.10.07 00:13:50 ] Deea Noban > o/ great fleet
[ 2012.10.07 00:13:58 ] Dece Goo’Ba > Excellent Ganked night :-) ttfn!
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:00 ] Rokhaard Indiz > thanks for the fleet everyone
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:02 ] Yori Yolanda > thx for fleet! great fight
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:12 ] mimori > Thanks chaps, was fun.
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:33 ] Morindius > thanks guys, my first Ganked and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:34 ] Thash Isnit > was fun thanks guys!
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:36 ] PVDNS77 > yeah nice ganked. even died \o/ thx for fleet o7
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:47 ] Ohpehk Doshu > great night. thanks RVB
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:51 ] Osoi Shinu > awesome thanks everyone
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:51 ] Himaro 1 > probably the most fun i’ve had on this game in a long time
[ 2012.10.07 00:14:58 ] Andrew Koch > o/ thx for an awesome fleet
[ 2012.10.07 00:15:17 ] Nutbolt > thanks for ganked, was a really good end!
[ 2012.10.07 00:15:22 ] SoraXIII > yeah had a great time guys Mangala Solaris is an epic FC xD
[ 2012.10.07 00:15:24 ] Ganage Be’des > Thanks for the fights!
[ 2012.10.07 00:15:31 ] Solaven > Thanks for the roam guys. great fun.
[ 2012.10.07 00:15:36 ] Janis Praag > great fight fly unsafe!
[ 2012.10.07 00:16:57 ] Stickelback > was that a win lose or draw?
[ 2012.10.07 00:17:09 ] Phantom OfKrankor > it was a good loss
[ 2012.10.07 00:17:35 ] Mangala Solaris > WIN. We exploded, they did too. I didnt rage :D
[ 2012.10.07 00:17:57 ] Strom Crendraven > thanks that was fun!
[ 2012.10.07 00:19:46 ] Kast Agnet > Cheers guys thx 4 everything
[ 2012.10.07 00:20:10 ] Jagtor > cheers mang got to go
[ 2012.10.07 00:21:14 ] Dieter Rams > thanks for the fleet guys
[ 2012.10.07 00:21:17 ] Furious Ginger > fun time guys gtg :D
[ 2012.10.07 00:21:19 ] Dieter Rams > well done
[ 2012.10.07 00:21:37 ] Bazanti d’Arys > Thanks for the Fleet RvB, I had a beautifull death!
[ 2012.10.07 00:21:44 ] Mangala Solaris > glad you came!
[ 2012.10.07 00:21:48 ] Michael Warsaw > Thanks for having me, awesome stuff!
[ 2012.10.07 00:21:53 ] Johnny Vector > that was awesome.
[ 2012.10.07 00:22:14 ] Henry Warsaw > Awesome is an understatement.
[ 2012.10.07 00:24:09 ] Shepherd Riddick > great ganked thx mates

Videos to follow when uploaded

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

Scouting Distinction – Buzzard+Probes+Launcher x3 (Sir Yohnny, Captain Hurrdurr, Kaeda Maxwell)

Corpse Collector – Eris x1 (Captain Hurrdurr – for the awesome chain of friendly pods at the end of the night!!!)

Spot Prizes – Federation Navy Comet x6 (SoraXIII, Edvantage – “I CANT SHOOT THEM OR THEM OR THEM OR THEM”, Janis Praag, Rondra Juliaris, Rokhaard Indiz for this – “when fc tells you to take a piss, you ask how high”, Henry Warsaw for this “My first pvp roam. Lets for that guys!”)

Combat Distinction – Cynabal x3 (Green Gambit – for putting that Vindicator on the line so well, BigWierdo, Admiral Rufus – This pair did some great bubbling in the various fights we had)

Combat Excellence – Machariel x1 (Macgyver 3rd – topping the KB kills for the campaign, in the face of hard competition from many including several new comers to Ganked)

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