Alliance Tournament X Wrap-up

The Tenth Alliance Tournament has come and gone, and it was quite a show. In my opinion, there isn't an event more representative of the best parts of Eve. The AT runs the full gamut of planning, meta-gaming, and small gang pvp execution. From the first match to the last, it was an impressive display.

My initial impression is that this is the closest Alliance Tournament I've ever seen. There was a bit of a cookie-cutter feel to some matches with all of the Vindicators, Sleipnirs and Vargurs, but match outcomes were determined far more by skill than simply by bringing the right setup. Speaking of setups, there were a few noteworthy ones. The first one that has to be mentioned is the HUN Reloaded Vargur team. This one general team anchored around the two or three Vargurs pushed them all the way to the final round. The team was well put together and even more so, well piloted. 

My other noteworthy setups both belong to Pandemic Legion. I've already discussed the team with the flagship Bhaalgorn and the four Malices. PL failed to disappoint on the final day as well, packing a very impressive ECM team, anchored by three Widows. This team absolutely handled Darkside in a near-flawless victory. A part of me wonders if they should have saved it for the HUN match against that Vargur team, but I suppose you have to make it to that semifinals before you can use it there. And Darkside was not to be taken lightly after last year.

Rather not be on the receiving end of this one

I have to say, I'm damn proud of both PL and RvB. I thought the latter was performing especially well despite many people not taking them as serious contenders. As Raivi commented, I'm a bit disappoined PL couldn't manage to find their way through just one more match, as that would have at least secured 50 Cambions. I have a feeling that we may be able to get our hands on either Cambions or Etanas somehow though ;-)

Out of the Alliance Tournament, I have two new goals for my own career, and they're both a bit ambitious. The first is to own an AT prize ship of my own. I'm especially partial to the Freki, being a Rifter hull. My second choice would be an Adrestia, the Thorax-inspired HAC. I make enough isk that its plausible to procure one of these little treasures at some point. 

The second goal is to someday fly in the Alliance Tournament. The AT is a "fair" fight with everything on the line and everyone watching. That's something special. I've got some work to do over the next couple years, but that's the next step for me. I can't think of a more rewarding experience.

As a final wrap-up, CCP and all of the commentators who put in their hard work deserve a great deal of thanks. These people gave up their weekends for a month straight and put on one hell of a show. Congratulations as well to all of the competitors, especially Verge of Collapse and HUN Reloaded. Enjoy the new toys.

Wrapping up the POS Bashing

Tonight was another night in the Oracle cleaning up some of the space trash. Luckily, the Waffles & PL supplied some dreads to help drop the POS's coming out of reinforced. Its unbelievable how much quicker it is to take down a POS with Cap support. I pity anyone who has to do it any other way.

Everything was going smoothly for quite some time. On the third POS of the night for me, local spiked and in came a decent sized gang. Our fleet didn't have much in the way of light tackle given our mission, but we had to stick around to support the dreads. The enemy fleet got tackle on a couple dreads, so they went into siege and waited out their timers. Once this happened, our fleet was committed, at least for the short term. As the battle went on, we ended up taking down a large part of their fleet before they warped off. I was impressed to see the results. The dreads jumped out safely to a friendly cyno at the end of their siege cycle.We held the field.

Apparently there is only one more day of POS shooting left. After that, its on to actually targeting and violencing ships instead of towers for a while. I'm most certainly looking forward to that. I've racked up a few kills this week, but nothing really of interest. Its time to start getting back to basics. Looking forward to seeing what gangs the FCs are taking out this weekend and learning the ropes for real. My plan is to stick to tackle, bombers or battlecruisers to get my feet wet. I'm ready to go.

Joining SniggWaffe

Over the weekend, I applied and joined up with SniggWaffe. The Waffles are affiliated with Pandemic Legion, but from what I've gathered they don't directly fly together too often. No problem for me there. I want to jump into low & null and take fights where I can get them; I don't need to be actively flying with PL members all the time.

Not sure when I picked up the massive bounty btw

Why the change? For me it was pretty simple. RvB is great, but I needed something more. I'm not going to pay for multiple accounts so that I can smash Rifters into other Rifters forever. Again, that's no knock on RvB at all, but I want to upship and take on some bigger challenges.The question, then, was a matter of where. I'd known of SniggWaffe for a while, and saw on the forums that they were recruiting. As I've said before, I respect PL, so I decided this would be a natural choice.

Upon joining, I had to wait for forum access for comms, putting me a bit on the outside for fleets. I was still able to get on board for a good old POS bash though. All I had around was a Tornado, which does the job well but wastes a lot of ammo at the same time. I spent most of the weekend grabbing ships, shuttling them in via a Viator and fitting them. I'm glad to be mostly done with that part of the process.

A banana boat with Tachyons

Tonight we were still bashing POS's. Some we had to reinforce and some were coming out of RF, but it was pretty rough both ways. I did learn my lesson regarding the Tornado though. An Oracle with T1 ammo has no need to waste charges.  Its a fantastic POS take-down ship, which is just like being the best at winning staring contests... its really just not all that great.

I did manage to get in one good fight tonight, but sadly I was on the wrong end. A fleet mate and I split a gang across a gate and tried to take down a Sleipnir before getting the hell out of there. The isolation worked pretty well, but I botched a jump instead of a reapproach and got caught up. I neuted the Sleipnir and gave it everything I had, getting him into hull before I dropped. It certainly would have been a nice kill to start my time in Waffles. I think the pilot's direct quote in local was "I JUST PEED MY PANTS." Yeah, it was that type of close. Oh well.

Its been a very solid start to the new corp overall though. I'm well settled and ready to hit the ground running. The first deployment should be a damn good time too. The next task is finally getting the dust off of that Thanatos and getting it over here. Meanwhile, I'm hoping for some actual fleets instead of POS bashes (for at least some part of this week). Time will tell.

Macabre Votum

As of earlier this evening, I am officially a member of Macabre Votum and Against ALL Authorities. This decision has been quite a while in the making, as I've been talking with a few good corps about possibilities. So far, I've gotta say I think I made the right choice.

The big conflict in trying to decide on a corporation was that I wanted small gang PVP but also an active corporation. A few of the corps that I was looking into had great stats and a bunch of legit guys, but just not enough activity for my liking. I wanted to join a corp with the intent on flying as a part of fleets, not just soloing under a different corp banner.

So in the end, I chose MV because they're a group of experienced pilots that always have gangs going out. Of course I can still solo or grab a few guys and take a small gang out, but its nice to have the consistent activity. -A- seems to be a good fit as well. I'm not one who needs sov to be happy, but its certainly not a bad thing. I have plenty of isk, and I don't get off to having more space-territory than anyone else. I do like to have stable resources and logistics though, and that certainly comes with established territory.

After being officially accepted, I decided to make the long trek down to our current base of operations. I grabbed an clone without implants, fitted up a Cheetah in Amarr for mobility and tore through Kerberz into HED-GP, an infamous high-null connection known for its violence. It turns out this first jump into null was the closest I ever came to getting caught, with a pretty established gate camp of Sabres, Vagabonds and Cynabals. Cloak and burn (almost) never fails though, and I got away. Besides a couple of roaming gangs, I didn't see much action again until I hit GE-8JV, which is currently owned by PL. They didn't offer too much trouble though, and I pretty much shot right through creating my bookmarks and warping away.

It was a night of no real action, yet some significant achievement. I'm all ready to go with MV. I just need to get some ships together and fit and I should be good to go. Its certainly going to be an interesting winter.

-- Rollins

Burn New Eden

“december summit agenda: destroy ALL the outposts. burn the galaxy to ash. nothing that exists should be immune to destruction #tweetfleet”

     -- @TheMittani, CSM Chair

"Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." 

     -- Alfred Pennyworth, "The Dark Knight"

The Mittani: out of game

Mittani is intriguing. Love him or hate him, its a fact. Now of course CCP is under no obligation to follow through on this one, but let's think about the implications. First of all, Outposts would have to have incredibly high HP, or else they'd become extinct. I'd also presume that you'd have to destroy all the Sov structures around it first before it becomes vulnerable. Regardless, it makes everything a bit more interesting than a POS bash. Are ships going to drop when you destroy it? ALL of the ships in the Outpost? Even if they don't, if CCP finds a way to make killmails and incorporate all the ships destroyed, these things will go down and FAST.

This puts a whole new spin on 0.0 warfare if these changes go through. It essentially creates the same situation with Stations as we have with podding: "Give us 100 Billion isk or we blow up the station." Pandemic Legion will have an absolute field day with this. All of those supercaps that were put on ice (maybe?) from Crucible will be right back in play, destroying your assets one station at a time. I love it. Its all of the best (see: worst) parts of Eve. Don't feel like participating in that CTA? Okay, enjoy waking up in high sec, no clone, tens of ships all gone. Beautiful.

This will change null sec, no doubt. It gives motivation beyond the typical sovereignty reasons. It gives pilots a reason to undock that isn't motivated by money or normal PVP. New Eden will Burn.

-- Rollins