FUKBEANS BANANNASLIPPERS FIRE FIRE FIRE!!!...

Well, I did it… I got into a fight, on purpose, fought well, and lived to tell about it …  =]

Last week I dropped roles, and left the C2 for Dodi to join w/ Oz & Fer in their pirate corp. The 1^st few days I was sorta just biding my time at Dodi and waiting for them to tell me what to do… Then I figgered out that it is up to ME as to what to do. This may seem obvious to some of you but lemme ‘splain where it come from…

When I first joined EVE I spent the 1^st month or so solo’in around just getting a ‘feel’ for the place. I just bumbled around with no plan or guide which can lead to some really interesting discoveries and experiences. When you have a guide you feel ‘safe’. You know the person leading you by the hand ‘Knows All About This Stuff’ and will advise you and keep you safe. When you don’t have a guide… well, life can be vastly more interesting…   =]

Like the 1^st time I saw the Caldari Prime Titan, THAT was a stunner. I had just completed the training that opened up Cruisers to me and did some reading and research and had decided on a Stabber as my 1^st cruiser. The Stabber is a small, fast std. Minnie Cruiser and a nice step up from Dessies without being too BIG a jump up in terms of cost, fitting, handling, etc. Anyhoo, I had researched and bought a nicely priced hull several hops away from where I was at the time, and I jumped in a shuttle and made the run to pick her up, fitted her out (mostly T1) and headed back to my home base. In all the runnin around buyin, getting and fittin all the mods I ended up comin back through some systems I had never gone through before… including the Luminaire system in the Essence region.

As I was passing through I noticed a marker about something called the “Caldari Leviathan”. Huh? A Leviathan is a Titan, the biggest ships in EVE are Titans and they are NOT allowed in Empire space. I had to see what this was about so I warped to the marker and… well, you gotta see it for yourself.

Now understand this is one of the 4 largest ships in ALL OF EVE… these things are upwards of 7 to 9 MILES long. This one was surrounded by a fleet of approx 40 or so (by my count) Caldari Navy BS & BC class ships. The ship is so large that if you warp to say, 50KM out and turn off tactical and HUD… you can’t even SEE any of the 40 or so support ships… but the Titan is a plain as day in front of you. As you approach you start to see little specks moving around the ship… get closer still and you begin to realize those ‘little specks’ are a FLEET flying around it… as you even get closer you realize those ‘little specks’ are Battlecruisers and Battleships AND they look like flies swarming around a dead horse… that was when I brought my brand new Stabber to a full stop… and just sat there… in awe.

It was only after sittin there like a tourist for some time that I realized there were ships other then the NPC fleet present AND they were fighting… Get that. I dint even notice the fighting… I swear. Several Capsuleers were flying around INSIDE the ball of Cal Navy NPC ships… and firing on some of them! I watched as a Cal Navy Raven was asploded… the pilot what killed him then looted the wreck. Hey!! This could be FUN! So I went tactical, decided on the smallest BC I could find nearest to the edge of the fleet, flew to just within my optimal range… aligned to warp out… targeted the ship… and started the music…

And I died. Badly. Really, really badly… and quick too. LOL…

You see, as my guns started to strike home the ship I was firing on, AND a very large number of other ships in the NPC fleet, ALL targeted ME and ALL fired on ME and ALL at the same time… Wow. I lasted just long enough to think “WTF!?!?! SHIT! I need to warp outta here!!” I popped as I was trying to start to initiate a warp out.

I sat there in my pod as it rocked in the shock wake and cloud of smoke and debris from my brand new paint-still-wet Stabber wreck… and man was I pissed!  I LOL about it now, but at the time I was as ready to rage quit as I have even been. Anyhoo… I went and bought and fitted out a new Stabber and got over it. Later I went back and this time watched the other pilots at work carefully and saw they used drones to aggress a ship, and when that ship and others fired back on the drones they then opened fire on the ship directly while pulling their drones back… this tactic breaks the aggro from ALL the Cal Navy fleet ships (for some reason including the one still being fired on) and allows the pilot to then take as long as he needs to down any single ship he wants... Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh…. NOW I see what I did wrong.

My point being, if I had had a guide or a friend along, yes, I would not have lost my 1^st Cruiser… but the sheer delight of discovery… and yes, even the loss of my ship… was simply too much fun to have missed out on in a guided tour. Plus I have a really wonderful memory and a great noob story to boot.  =]

So how does this relate to my sittin in Dodi and waiting on ‘Orders’ from Oz & Fer? Well, you see after my son AI, our RL friend SL & I founded HB and joined the Alliance we started to get War Dec’ed and we’d fleet up and try and fight back. Now when I was on my own… the trubble I got in was MY FAULT… I pwnup to it and took it like a noob, no problemo, But… during the Alliance wars, if you were going it alone and got ganked by WTs or if you lost badly… noobed it up or flew a faction ship and had a large I$K loss… you got hammered by your mates and allies. Not everyone was hard on everyone… but I have to admit I caught it too and was harsh with some of those who were “costing” us the war by losing ships. I myself had several losses and went so far as to write up an apology to our FC’s for a loss of mine... out of shame.

So I got conditioned. In time of War, you WAIT and follow ORDERS. You play it SAFE. You do NOT go solo. You do NOT lose ships at any cost. This was what my experience in the Alliance fleets had taught me. If we can’t blob em and WIN, stay in station so you stay safe and don’t piss off anyone… I hated war in the Alliance. I thought this was the way it was for everyone and that was partly why we, my corp, ended up sorta permalivin in the C2.

Now keep in mind I love the C2 and our POS and I’d live there no matter what… but there was a distinct feeling of “climbing into our hole and pullin it in after us” during the last 2 war decs. So… we lost some corps… the Executor logs off (and no one has seen him for over a month now…) and finally the wars cease.

So what do I do but leave the C2 and my corp just to intentionally go right back to War?

I hate war right? I hate the waiting and the BS and the ‘fear’ of losing. Well, all that hatin and fear actually was why I was here, but THIS time on MY terms. I wasn’t being dec’ed and on the defense… I was one of the people doing the dec’ing and gettin offensive! Plus I really like and respect the abilities of the guys I am flying with and believe I can learn a lot from them without any of the hammering and blame game shit that went during the Alliance wars. Not that there weren’t pilots and FCs in the Alliance that I liked and respected… there were and are. But this time it was by MY choice that I went to War.

So I have come to a realization… an epiphany if you will… the only problem with war in the Alliance was… nobody tried to ENJOY it. Many of us… me included I am ashamed to say, took it FAR too seriously. Keeping careful track of ships and I$K losses. I know that that is the measuring stick for who won/lost wars in EVE… but there is the other side to that coin… it can be FUN if you let it/make it be fun. Yea, ok, keep track of the ships & I$K… but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the game or doing your best to learn and get better. Accept the losses and support and help the pilots who lose. Get them back in the saddle and help em back out onto the field and back in the game. And LOL over the losses and slap each other’s backs over the wins at the close of the day.

This past weekend, Oz, SM and I ganged up and got into a fight with Oz’s WTs outside of Dodi station. SM is a member of our brother corp in the C2 and uses RR aggro mechanics to join fights as he is not actively IN the war as an aggressor or defender, but if he RR’s someone who is in the war, then he garners aggro against the other side… IE he goes flashy RED to them. Now he cannot fire on the other side until they fire 1^st. But he can continue to RR if they don’t, greatly assisting the side he is supporting, and if the other side does shoot at him then he can actively join in the fight.

The 1^st night I was not yet in corp w/ Oz so I too was going to be using RR aggro mechanics. I was in station thinkin about the (I hoped) fight to come and I realized I don’t have to sit there and ‘wait’ on Orders… yes, we are going to work as a team and I am by far the junior member of said team… but that does not mean I have to be mute and skeered. So I manned up and have been far more actively involved and mentally prepared for a fight than I have been since Fer was teaching me WH tactics and suchlike months ago in the C1. I felt good and I felt ready.

I was in Dodi and we all ended up there. 2 of the WTs undocked, Oz & SM were outside and called me out. I took a deep breath, and undocked. One of the WTs was in a Brutix and another was in a Stabber.. I was in a Vexor, Oz was flyin his Legion and SM was in a Drake. Oz took on the Brutix and SM and I locked Oz up and started RR’in him. I had 5 Med Armr drones out and workin. After a min or so Os said “OK that should do it Tur.” Another WT undocked ina Rifter and immediately attacked me.

SM joined Oz against the Brutix and I defended myself from the Rifter. I pulled 2 of my RR drones in and launched 2 Ogre Is which I targeted on the Rifter. I started up my guns, DCU II and armor repper and orbited the Rifter at 1000m. He ate my shields down in good order and started in on my armor while I and my drones worked on him. I got through his shields and was getting deep into his armor in good time while my repper was tanking his incoming better than he was mine. Then we both got RR assists. Oz sent his RR drones on me and a neutral pilot began armor repping the Rifter after I had got him into hull.

Now it was a stand-off between me and the Rifter as his armor and mine were now fully repped against each other’s DPS. Oz & SM finished off the Brutix and Oz ordered me to deagress. I untargeted the Rifter and pulled in my drones. After 30secs Oz told me to dock up which I did. We had got 2 good kills, the Brutix between SM & Oz and a Stabber Oz popped… I never even saw the Stabber fight as I was busy with my fight.

If not for the neutral RR the Rifter got, I would have popped him. I had him into hull and he had me only into armor… and not deep either. But RR works both ways... I got RR from Oz and while I would have LOVED a Rifter kill my 1^st time out with the guys, I was happy overall with my performance. Yea… I had the shakes and my heart was pounding like a trip hammer… but I kept my cool and for one reason and one reason only… I was fighting on MY terms. I WANTED to be there I WANTED to KILL them I WANTED to fight. All but 2 of my other PvP encounters have been me getting attacked and being on the defensive. I felt very good about the whole engagement. If I lost my ship, so what, I eventually will, that is a given… but the chance to fly and fight and learn from and with these guys who I like and respect is very very worth it.

The next night we tried again… This time I had been accepted into corp and no longer needed to use RR aggro… but we couldn’t get the WTs to come out and play, they just played station games and stayed docked up or ran and docked as soon as we jumped in system. Booring…  Ifn yer skeered, SAY yer skeered!  And to think that someone in this game is skeered of me… LOL

Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

PS Update:

From Fer - "Tura, 5mins after you logged they engaged, I killed the Stabber & Brutix and got both of their pods."  sheesh...   =]