Flight of a Thousand Rifters

So through the grapevine, I caught wind of Marlona Sky's Flight of a Thousand Rifters event (Thanks Kirith for promoting that one). Here's the event description from her blog post:

"On 2011.12.17 (December 17th, 2011) at precisely 19:00 GMT (game time) I will undock from:

EVENT LOCATION
Vlillirier IV - Moon 13 - Wiyrkomi Corporation Warehouse

I will be sieging a station with Intigo, my Moros dreadnought. It has been irrelevant for a good couple years and it is high time it dies of a fiery death explosion.
I want to give players a change to do some damage and win some prizes so I will be running a player event to destroy my dreadnought. There are a few rules to follow for you to be eligible for prizes. The top three players with the most points gained with a frigate or destroyer class ship will each win one of three prizes. The player leaving the final blow on my Moros or the final blow on my capsule will each receive a special prize."

(Full Eve-O post: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=44946&find=unread)


I'd never really done any player events besides in-house RvB things, so I decided I may as well give this a go. I figured worst case scenario, I was still on a Moros mail, so let's give it a shot.

I fitted up a couple Catalysts, since the post-Crucible hybrid buff makes for some ridiculous Catalysts. Basically the thought process was total glass-cannon approach. I was just trying to whore on the mail and get enough damage to get in the prizes. So this is what I came up with for a pure DPS Catalyst.

[Catalyst, Marlona Sky Contest]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II

Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Warp Scrambler II

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I
Small Hybrid Ambit Extension I
Small Ancillary Current Router I

So I fit up a few of these, moved them out to Orvolle (3 jumps from Vlillirier), and hit the road. I entered local and the first thing coming across the airwaves was Marlona saying, "2 MINUTES LEFT." Perfect timing. I warped to Planet IV at 100km and aligned to the station. When I saw the dreadnaught on scan, I warped to the Wiyrkomi Station, turned on the MWD and locked up Marlona. All was going to plan.

The Great Beast

Then a Rifter from Red Federation locked me up and started shooting me. This was less than two minutes in, and I wasn't about to have to go reship that early. So I locked him up and started shooting. Small Blasters --> Yes. The eight Light Ion Blasters were ripping through this Rifter, and he hadn't touched my armor yet. I was still orbiting Marlona and he tried to run, so I turned on the MWD and caught up. The Rifter was AB fit, so he didn't stand a chance against my speed and damage. He exploded quickly once I caught up again.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=14825149

So back to Marlona Sky's Moros. It was a bit of a slow process, and no one was really attacking each other for fear of station guns, which pretty much instapop small ships. Marlona Sky goes into structure at about 15 minutes in, and as she's creeping down, I overload my guns. All of the sudden, a Red Taranis, who has been well-behaved this whole time, engages me. I couldn't find his name quickly enough on the overview, and the glass cannon Catalyst goes boom at about the same time as the Moros.

Local explodes with questions of who got the mail. I'm pretty damn curious myself, as prizes were totalling over 4 billion in isk. I look on the mail when it is finally posted, and I was the 10th highest damage dealer. Top 7 got prizes :(  Looks like I just missed out. I look at the mail and there are bombers on there. Damn, for some reason I thought it was only T1 frigs and dessys. My fault.

I have to wonder if my getting drawn off the Moros to fight that Rifter and my premature death from the Taranis cost me a spot in the top 7. Oh well, to finish in the top 10 out of 153 on the killmail is not too bad at all. In fact I'd say its pretty damn good.

Regardless, this event was awesome. I had a blast with the theory crafting and the event itself. A special thanks obviously goes to Marlona Sky for providing us the fun. It was an awesome turn out, and looking at Dotlan, Vlillirier is the second bloodest lowsec system right now \o/. A great time all around.

-- Rollins