Fortizar Kill in Notoras

To cut to the chase, we blew up a Fortizar in Notoras, which is Black Rise, which is low sec space.  It belonged to Snuffed Out.

Another structure goes boom

There were actually a lot of us on that kill mail.  Looking down the list of the 413 characters listed, I can see at least three different fleets represented.  The Initiative brought a Zealot fleet, while a Sacrilege and Jackdaw fleet formed up in Cloud Ring and flew out to join in.

Zealot getting reps after flying into the PDS

There were also some capitals formed up and jumped to a mid point, though they were not called in.

We were clearly expecting a fight.

I didn’t see any pre-pings for the op, but happened to be online and done with work in the afternoon just in time to join up.  Asher was leading the Sac fleet and I almost didn’t get into it, as it filled up so fast.  A few people must have jumped to the Jackdaw fleet or swapped to a capital, because I managed to slip in after getting the fleet full message for a while.

I was going out in my lucky Guardian, being lucky that it lived through the last op.  I actually volunteers to be a capacitor transfer Guardian this time around.  You pull off the remote repair modules in your high slots, swapping them out for some more capacitor transfer module so you can cap up other ships in the fleet if they need it.  I had read up on the doctrine and saw this was something we might need once in a while, so had brought the modules with me.  I would be in the cap chain, but could turn off broadcasts for repair as I couldn’t repair anything.  I was just there to fill up the tank of other ships.

Things formed up and got settled pretty quickly and we were soon undocking.

Everybody out of the Keepstar

The capitals jumped from the undock, while the subcap fleets went off to meet up with a pair of titans to get bridged on their way to the target.

Simultaneous bridges up

That got us into low sec, where we gated out way to the destination, fighting the usual time dilation issue that comes up when you start pushing a few hundred ships through otherwise quiet parts of space.

The gate animations are pretty cool in slow motion

We got into the Notoras and sat on a friendly structure for a bit before being warped on grid with the Fortizar.  The final repair timer was already counting down and a gunner was present in the structure.

On grid with the target

On grid with a lot of ships, we didn’t see any opposition other than the structure itself.  But Asher told us the hostiles were formed up.  Capitals had jumped into position to oppose us, having passed through a mid point while somebody was watching, while they were reported to have a full Muninn fleet and additional formations ready to drop in on us.  A fight sounded imminent.

And then a Pilgrim force recon showed up at range from us and lit a cyno.  Asher warped us to it and we blew it up quickly enough.  A quick kill to get the event started.

Asher warped us back into range of the Fortizar and we went back to shooting it.  Well, those with weapons did, the logi just orbited around their anchor and listened to what was happening in coms.

Guardians out and orbiting

Arrendis, the logi anchor, moved us around to keep us in range of the fleet but to avoid some of the bombs coming from the Fort.  In taking stock of the logi, he apparently noticed Crake MaddAdam for the first time, who was along in an Exequror.  Arrendis told him he was likely to die when the fight came, but I had to admit he had picked the right SKIN to join up with us.

Still the best logi SKIN ever

Meanwhile, we started getting word about the impending fight.  Its likelihood seemed to be diminishing rapidly.  Asher reported that the hostile capitals were spotted heading back from whence they came, that some subcaps that had flown in from the dronelands were homeward bound, and that the Muninns might be standing down.

The question then was whether or not we had killed their only cyno ship, because everything seemed to be building for a fight right up until that exploded.  It seems unlikely, but sometimes people forget to have backup plan.

So it looked like we were just going to blow up a Fortizar with a bunch of people.  As the structure got down under 10% I slipped away from the logi and into range so I could launch a drone to get in a couple of hits so I too would appear on the kill mail.  The gunner had abandoned his post as the end came near so the PDS was off.  My drone made it there and back.

Things went boom.  Nkosis wanted to loot and there was some discussion around that.  And then we turned around and gated back home.

Returning to base

That took a bit, once again due to time dilation caused by pushing that many ships through low sec, but it wasn’t all that far to go, even without a titan bridge short cut.

We made it back, free burning most of the way, and I docked up, pulled the extra cap transfer modules off the Guardian, putting the remote armor rep modules back on lest I forget, and that was that.  There were a few points during the fleet where bombs were hitting us and I thought about repping, only to realize I could only cap people up, so I had very little to do save look out the window and listen to coms.  But at least my Guardian made in back home again.

Raitaru Fight in Frarie

We had another timer waiting for us last night in Frarie.  Snuffed Out had previously reinforced a Raitaru we had dropped not too far from our Fortizar and the final event was at hand.

Counting Down

We formed up in Abaddons again, wondering if Snuff would show up for the timer or not.

Word was that they too were forming, and eyes on their home in Rakapas said they were putting together a mix of Machariels and Apocalypse Navy Issues with fax support.  A few minutes after the repair cycle had started they bridged in.  At that point we undocked and warped straight onto them with out pulse beam fit Abaddons, with our own fax in tow, and a brawl ensued.

The Abaddons off the Raitaru

At that point I got very busy as I was once again out in the dirty Guardian doing my logi thing.  Cainun was targeting Machariels to make them pay in ISK while they were going after logi to make killing the rest of the fleet that much easier.

Our logi was holding and a few Machariels had died when Snuff upped the ante and started dropping in dreadnoughts.  Our logi chain was broken and our fax wasn’t able to keep up. Guardians were alpha’d off the field by their battleships while the HAW dreads starting hitting Abaddons.  The dirty Guardian was no more.

We had the option to escalate as well.  We have some anti-cap dreads of our own that could have come into the fight.  However, the word was that they had their titan and super pilots logged in and sitting in Rakapas waiting to jump in as well if we did so.

Cainun’s last act was to warp us all back to our Fortizar before his own ship exploded.  Our fax went down as well, as did the Raitaru.  The battle report shows the ISK war against us as well.

Battle Report Header

This fight, and our previous encounters with Snuff, does make me question the value of this deployment.  Liberty Squad leadership wanted to go somewhere where we could get “good fights” on something like a regular basis.  But we chose to base ourselves under the capital umbrella of Snuffed Out without bringing anything like enough to counter that.  That leaves them the option to escalate, something they have done in every fight.  We have had them drop titans on us more than once already.

Titans loll about a previous fight

And yet Snuff clearly wants us there.  They have more than enough capitals on hand to take out our Fortizar if they wanted to.  As with any such arrangement, the price to keep them from doing that is to fight them… entertain them… and lose.  If we stop, you can bet the Fortizar will be their next target.

This is, as always, the problem with low sec for me.  There is nothing here to win.  Nothing changes, we just form back up again another night to repeat the same event.

It makes me want to jump my clone over to the Black Ops deployment where they cyno in to gank somebody and about half the time it doesn’t go as planned and the locals jump us instead and we have to scramble to get out.  At least there is some question as to how the fight will end and a chance to get away with something before the supers start landing on you. (Fortunately I have an alt there already.)

Oh well, that is the nature of EVE Online without a war going on.

Learning Restraint in Placid

Our Fortizar in Frarie still stands.  Maybe there will be an actual fight over it at some point.

Named “Little House on the Frarie”

Last night wasn’t the night however.  I got home and saw a ping that we would be forming up to defend it.  Snuffed Out had come by and set the armor timer yet again.

Time running down…

As the time ticked down, we formed up in the Fortizar in our Abaddons and Guardians.  A scout in their home system of Rakapas reported that they were logged in and had eyes on their bridging titan.

But they did not come.  The timer ran down and the Fortizar was no longer in danger.

We were formed up and ready to go, and it was clear that Snuff was as well, though their bridging titan logged off.  They were not going to come to us.  They were expecting, not unreasonably after our past performance, us to come shoot one of their structures like we did on Saturday.

However, Cainun decided that we were not going to reward them with a feed for not showing up to the timer.  The Abaddon fleet stood down, we all got our PAP, and that was that.  Another doctrine was called later and Liberty Squad roamed elsewhere.  No fight with Snuff.

Abaddons in Low Sec Again

The Liberty Squad “good fights” deployment in Placid carries on.  There are no objectives to take, no territory to defend, and not much infrastructure to assail in low sec, unless you want to get involved in faction warfare, and we haven’t started doing that yet.

We are up there just to pick fights with the local power, Snuffed Out, and their allies.  And they seem willing to oblige now and then.

One way they seem to be interested in fighting us is economically by seeding our staging station with contracts for mal-fit doctrine ships that are just a bit cheaper than the fits being imported by the squad.  And, it doesn’t matter how often people say or broadcast about not buying contracts from random third parties, people will just buy the cheapest contract that sounds about right.  I know, I’ve made that mistake myself.

To combat this, Liberty Squad dropped a Fortizar in Frarie, the smallest structure that allows the owner to setup a market.

Named “Little House on the Frarie”

In theory this should stop the bad contract nonsense, since the locals lack docking rights.  In reality, enough people are still in the station that people keep buying the bad contracts.

The Fortizar also gives us another potential point of conflict, a target for the locals.  And they did take us up on that, reinforcing the Fortizar last week.  The armor timer was set to come out last night and squad leadership had pre-pinged about the potential for a fight.  It was time to get the Abaddons out again.

However, the timer came and went and Snuff did not show up.  This is the sort of thing that gets Cainun worked up, so he decided if they were not going to come to us, we were going to go to them, that having worked out so well previously.  So we all piled onto a titan, ready to be launched in the general direction of Snuff.

A Ragnarkok in a POS

We were bridged into their home area where we started looking for something to shoot.  I was in a Guardian this time around, with my alt on the second monitor in an Abaddon.

I still haven’t washed that Guardian

We ended up in Rakapas to shoot a Fortizar of theirs.  At that point things got very busy for me.  Attacking a gunned and defended Fortizar means a lot of bombs flying your way and lots of calls for reps.

Snuff undocked Machariels, at which point we became much less about shooting the Fortizar and much more about getting in position to fight their fleet.  This led to a series of warps back and forth around the Fortizar where Snuff seems disinclined to break tether.

After a while of this Cainun decided a fight was not going to happen.  By his estimation, Snuff Was not going to have a go at us unless everything was tilted in their favor, so he had us align out and head home.

The scout left behind reported that the Machariels warped off to a POS to get on a titan of their own once we left.  It looked like they were going to drop on us on our way home.  And when we spotted the cyno Cainun decided to give that a shot to see what they would bring.

The Machariel fleet dropped on us in Nennamaila and we were in close enough range to engage.  And while they did not bring HAW dreads along with them, they did jump fax support in to keep their Machs alive.  After a few attempts we were only able to break the tank on one Machariel while they were chewing up Abaddons one after another.

Once again, things were quite busy in the logi wing as we tried to keep people alive.

As the battle titled against us, the likelihood of us getting another Mach kill fell away, and Cainun decided to warp us out.  My alt, in an Abaddon, was tackled by one of the Machs however, so while my Guardian warped off to the station to dock up, the Abaddon sat there in the middle of hostiles waiting to die.  This was a double whammy because my alt had gotten the kill mail for the one Mach we killed, so that Abaddon was going to have a very short lived kill mark.

And then I was no longer pointed.  I don’t know if the person who had me tackled found a better target or if I just wandered out of range before it was my turn, but I wasn’t going to stick around and ask.  Already aligned and at speed, I warped right out and docked up with the rest of the survivors who made it out.

That Mahcariel we killed was expensive, but not expensive enough to offset out own losses.  We lost the ISK war by about a 6 to 1 margin according to the battle report.

Header from the Battle Report

And that total doesn’t include what we lost on the Fortizar in Rakapas, which would add another 3 billion ISK on top of that.  At least Abaddons insure well.

We waited in the station until they got bored and left.  They had already gotten their kills, so they didn’t hang around for very long.  After that we went back to Frarie to dock up in the Fortizar.

We shall see if they reinforce it again.  Doing that has worked out pretty well for them so far.  They haven’t killed any of our structures, but when they don’t show up for the timer Cainun feels the need to go find trouble, and he tends to get it.