Noob to Null… I’druther Be Inna Hole…

or~  Thus Begins HBHIs Third Foray into W-space…

Home at last, home at last…. Thank the Gods, we are home at last!! HBHI has moved into a C3 wormhole. We have our POS, basic internal mods and a good start on the defense mods setup. We have a new home…  =]

We had all staged the majority of our ships & mods at our HQ in Englennaert so when AI finalized on the new hole, he decided to buy a freighter and shipped the POS and mods to the last Hisec system before the lo run to the hole. And then used an Itty 5 to move everything in and setup the POS and such. Then he brought in his ships and stuff.

All of my ships and stuff had been shipped out to the HQ, by him, from the nullsec system we had been guesting in for the last few months. I asked if he would freight all of it out to the last Lo and I would bring it all in with my Mastodon. Well… that night I had had a very busy day and was dead wiped out tired and I knew if I logged on I would wake up either sitting on a gate or in my POD as I would most def fall asleep at the wheel as twere… so I just crashed and accepted that I had a lot of work ahead of me to get my stuff to wherever the new hole was going to be on the morrow.

Now the only ship I did not have in the HQ was my Mael, which AI had freighted out to the last Lo from the old null sys. He had stripped it for the freighting and so I had this bare hull Maelstrom with only x3 Lrg Cap Ctrl Circuits rigged to get out of lo and thence to the HQ where I could refit it and then get it in the hole. So I logged in yesterday and found I own AI one… big time… he had not only brought all my stuffs to the last Hi, he had then run everything in with his Indy… damn, what guy.

So I logon and he lets me know all my stuffs is in th' POS and he asks for some assistance with this POCO he’s bashing… wait, what? He is bashing a POCO… ALL BY HISSELF? LOL! OMG now THAT will take a while… I dunt care what yer flyin. As 'tis he is in a Kronos, hmmm… not too bad, she may be limited to only four Lrg Hybrids, but they are bonused very heavily… he can put out as much volley DPS as my Mael does with certain fits. As I am running a 650mm “Scout” AC fit, my volley is about 2K, he reports he is getting roughly 2500… schweet.

I get my Mael fitted and make the run in… AI reports the one Losec hop has been clear all day. He had no trubble at all bringing in all my stuff and making several runs in and out… cool. So I warp to the gate to the losys our hole is in and it is, of course, being watched… great… I overreact, jump through and then mess up and jump to another gate (thankfully to Hisec) instead of to the hole… just great. So I make the jump back… I am in a Maelstrom not an Indy, and while PvE fitted I have a very heavy tank and I also have a Dread Guristas Web fitted (freebie I got in null)(and it’s fit to help with them nasty Sleeper Frigs…) so I am not too worried unless I get gang surprise butt secks… but meh.

So I jump in the last Lo and I’m clear, then on to the hole and…  “Honeeeeey, Immmm HOOOOME!”  LOL. I fleet up with AI and warp to 0, target the POCO , launch x3 Caldari Navy Wardens and light up the 650mm “Scout” Lrg Auto-Cannons... and so I join AI in the second most snorefest activity in EVE… a structure bash. A POCO has 10M shld hit points, 2M armor and 2.5M hull… and AI has brought the shields down to approx 70% by the time I join in the fun. It does, of course, go much better with the two of us going at it, but still… it is ALMOST as bad as…   mining.

Needless to say I am spamming Dscan, reloading my guns as they run dry, firing… eventually run outta ammo, run to the POS, and have the crew stack ammo in the corridors, in the brig, in the mess… and head back. Eventually the POCO goes into reinforced mode… and AI’s reaction was epic and wonderful… he dint know the new POCOs go into reinforce mode same as a POS… he was not happy,  not 'madbro', but not happy…  LOL.

So we broke off the bash op and warped to the POS. I started breaking out my ships which had all been packaged for shipping and had to be assembled and rigged and fitted… shseesh. Then lo and behold Strigon logs on and undocks!!  Yae!!! For the first time in over two months the HBHI Founders and Directors are online together and in their very own POS in a C3 wormhole… Oh Frabjous Day!

AI wants to run a site, Strigon and I concur. Strigon has to reship and check ammo etc. Then we fleet warp to a “Solar Cell” site… So I ask if this is the lowest difficulty site inna C3 and I get,”Wha?” I ask again and get, “Uh, I dunno, just warpin us to the first one on Dscan…” Oh… great.  LOL... We are new to C3 sites and Sleepers and if you know ANYTHING about W-space it is the Sleepers are the hardest NPC AI ingame… and they get harder and moar deadly the higher you go up the Class ladder. We are warping to a site which ‘may’ be the hardest site in here and we have NO idea what to expect… LOL... This may not go well. If yer curious, read this… EVE-Survival W-Space Guide.

OK, so we warp in and the first thing that happens to me is my system goes dead laggy. I mean laggy like if you had the Burn Jita Event back two years ago laggy. I cannot effectively “do” anything… I had both AI and Strigon on the Fleet Watch List and saw Strigon, inna Duck, start to go into armor… I had not been hit once (that I could tell) and I had just gotten a target lock onna frig and was desperately trying to fire my guns when I get “Fleet warping to POS!” from Strigon. I go to warp and my system returns to normal functionality as we warp out of the site… Hmm… not an auspicious start to say the least.

AI and Strigon report no issues with functionality on their end, they just got pwned by the Sleepers is all, well… Strigon did… and in the one ship that is considered by one and all to be the W-space queen as far as tanking goes… The Drake may not put out world shattering DPS, but it can tank like a bich. That worried me a bit… plus my client going all fubar was not making me feel all warm and fuzzy… unless you feel all warm and fuzzy right before your POD breaches and spills your bloated flashfrozen radiation toasted corpsicle into the black…

So I shut down all systems, hardbooted, logged back on and had SARA (the Semi Autonomous Rational Array computer AI that runs… well, everything…) run a Level III systems diag… all green she says.. uh huh… well, let’s see what we shall see then. I report ready to go back and once moar into the breach my friends… we warp back to the site. THIS time I am ok. All systems responding and functioning at normal efficiency. As I am AC fit and running Fed Navy PPLas I hit HARD but I do not have the range that Strigon in his Duck and AI in his Kronos have so I target and go after them as are inside my falloff.

Now I start to attract some love from the Nefarious Forces of Naptime and DAMN! That is attention I can do without! I have 64.3K EHP with 129HP’s passive recharge from the Lrg Shield Extndr II and x3 Adapt Invuln IIs w/ x3 Lrg CDF Purger rigs and I am cut down to 50% shields faster than I can honestly say I have ever seen before… I call out my status and request the fleet align to POS. A few seconds later my 30% shield warning klaxons fill the ship with their dire warning and I request an emergency warpout… we fleet warp to the POS, allow shields and CAP to recharge, then go back to it.

We are killing a few ships each time, but we dunt know the triggers and I am sure we have triggered all waves on grid a damn sight earlier than we should have. But, we are managing it, we can’t go toe to toe with ‘em as it stands though. Even so, AI is tractoring and looting the wrecks as we go and I had completed fitting my Noctis earlier, except for Salvage Tackle Rigs, so once we finished the site, which we eventually did, all I had to do was reship, warp to AI and run the salvagers on everything… If this turns out to be a workable tactic I may try a x8 Salvager II fit Noccy as it was very fast salvaging and back to the POS.

AI did some prelim estimates of the ISK values for the L&S (no MNRS) and for one site it was a decent haul considering we dint get any MNRs… but I am wary of the Est Values in the new UI and anyhoo… one site does not a statistical basis make. Besides I was in a Noctis sans Tackle rigs and this time I have decided to go the cost of the T2 versions… approx 40M each last time I priced am…they are supposed to give you an additional 5% over the T1 versions which would put me at the game max of 130% chance to pull the best salvage… we shall see what we shall see.

BTW… while we were running the site, AI said… “Happy father’s day Jas…” Damn… a better father’s day present I could nae have asked for than to be back in W-space flying with my sons… brought a real salt water tear to the right hand corner of my left hand eye it did…  =]

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