When I use the term “headshot,” I am merely borrowing from PAPI’s own words.
Boom Headshot!
The invaders got together in EUTZ yesterday to make their first real push against the Imperium capital from their staging on gate over in T5ZI-S.
As soon as PAPI started to move, pings went out on the Imperium side and forces were formed to defend the system. Multiple fleets went up and EU players, and those of us in the US working from home who could take a break. I got into Mister Vee’s Rokh fleet and we undocked with Fax support to get into the fight.
Rokhs and Minokawas on the way
PAPI’s plan seemed to be a two pronged attack, with them targeting both the main cyno jammer in system as well as the ihub. Killing the cyno jammer would allow them to drop their capital fleet on us while getting the ihub would break the Ansiblex jump bridge connection to Helms Deep and the safe hold of Delve that it defends.
We headed to the ihub, which is on grid with multiple structures, including a Keepstar and a faction Fortizar that sat within range of our guns.
On the ihub grid
As we arrived we could see that PAPI had multiple entosis ships at work on the ihub, but they still had a long ways to go.
51 minutes to go
That the system was under heavy time dilation due to there being nearly 3K people in system was not helping their progress.
We got set up on the Fortizar, spread out a bit, and started shooting targets as they were called. Things moved slowly in tidi, and we had a couple of fleets on grid with the hostiles, so there was some overlap in targeting… and some targets melted pretty quickly.
And then they seemed to give up on the ihub. We had blown up all of their entosis ships… those went so fast I couldn’t finish locking them before they were gone… and the ihub began counting back down in our direction.
Back towards CONDI
Interdictors were out to try and hold them down… most escaped but we got a few more… and then the ihub was quiet again. We kept an eye on it lest they return. But the fight was still going on over the cyno jammer and there was now more than 3,800 people in system.
The faction Fortizar and other structures on grid
The cyno jammer fight went our way as well and soon after that began to tip towards us the hostiles began to collect themselves up and headed for the gate back to T5Z. We warped over there to join in on trying to pop ships as they tried to get out.
Rokh ball waiting for targets by the gate
We managed to pluck a few stragglers out of the mix, but most got out. When the smoke cleared and zKillboard caught up, the battle report showed that the fight over the ihub and cyno jammer fell in our favor.
Battle Report Header
With the participant numbers about even, it was going to be a steep hill for PAPI to be successful in their headshot attempt. And, because 1DQ has its ADM up at 5.7, that means it will take an attacker 57 minutes to successfully entosis the ihub on any attempt and that there is less than a three and a half hour window when they can make the attempt daily.
Still, I am sure they will be back. The Imperium won, but we have to keep winning that fight until they give up. And PAPI, they have to take down at least the cyno jammers so they can drop their capitals in to support any attack on our Keepstars. We’ll be back for another round I am sure.
After the fight, when we were back on the Keepstar, Mister Vee regrouped us all to him and had us all set off our MJDs to see us burst out in a group. He seemed to enjoy the Rokh doctrine.
MJDs warming up
I ended up in the model of the Keepstar, which again tells you how big the Keepstar model is. I jumped 100km and was inside still.
Later on Asher took 200 of us into T5ZI-S to show PAPI how entosis is done.
On the T5Z ihub with eight hackers
Despite being outnumbered in the system, the PAPI response to us was desultory at best, with individual ships showing up to try and ECM Burst the entosis ships to break their lock and stop the hack. Not only were they not successful, Asher declared that we should make one of their pods a pet and not kill it, but just keep it pointed so it could not warp away. And such became the fate of Brothuhbob.
Brothuhbob trying to motor out of range
It would have been Vily, who came out in a Griffin and got popped, but somebody wanted his corpse so his pod didn’t last.
We kept Brothuhbob around for quite a while. Somebody put combat drones on him at one point and several of us in the logi wing rushed out and repped him to keep him safe. Eventually he decided his only way out was to self-destruct. Reps can’t stop that.
We successfully reinforced the T5Z ihub, though their ADM was much lower and we didn’t have tidi slowing down the timer, and headed back to 1DQ.
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