Monday, August 25, 2008

War (?) Ends... So we go on a fieldtrip!

Our latest war dec ends in a few hours. A 1 man corp dec'ed us, lost the ship for which his corp is named (demonstrating a total lack of understanding of one of the easiest fitting ships in the game) and then went to Plan B. Plan B involved logging on in space in a nano'ed Crow, warping from deep safespot to deep safespot, going 9k mps toward some distant celestial object & then proclaiming in local how uber he was, even as he refused all opportunities to engage.

Plan C involved self-posting to C&P on EO and asking for others to join him in his 'winning campaign'. Plan C must not have worked out so well either as his member count never moved from one.

Plan D involved just logging in on his alt.

So, since the warbeer supply was still adequate, we took the students on a little fieldtrip to 0.0. We take these on occasion and all the participants are clearly instructed to fly something they can afford to lose ('cause the odds are about 10 to 1 that they will) and to fly an empty headed clone (for the same reason).

Every time we do this, three things happen:

1. We have a great time, mostly going bloooie at some point!
2. A student forgets to check and loses a nice set of implants (Snakes? ouch!)
3. Somebody flies a ship they _really_ didn't want to lose.

As for our trip Sunday? Check. Check. And check.

Our 40+ fleet was holding the gate quite nicely. Big bubble up. Showing the students where to position tacklers to grab people that bounce off the bubble. Talking about the importance of positioning & scouting. Hostile count in local was about 10. We had popped a few of the curious and the unwary. Hostile count increased a bit... Our scouts were reporting what was jumping in system. Nothing to be concerned about so far. Then, in a set of clearly coordinated moves, a hostile Sabre jumps through the gate and a hostile Domi warps in at the edge of the bubble. No big deal... FC calls targets for the various squads, we start taking them both down. Then... Well, then, the Hammer arrived. :)

"A Ragnarok just warped in..."
"WTF is a Ragnarok?"
"Jum..."
"Momma? Look at all the pretty lights!"
"Momma? Why am I in a pod?"

That's right, sports fans! The Eve Uni fleet had just been Doomsdayed! Frigate wrecks littered the field. A few of the battleships survived and escaped, but the student ships were toast. It was epic!

A good time was had by almost all (the pilot with the Snakes was understandably not too pleased, but, hey, whadda ya gonna do?) and the students got some valuable lessons about how much 0.0 is different from Empire. I'm sure the Ragnarok pilot had fun, too!

2 comments:

WTM said...

Being DD'd is a unique experience...

I remember when I was DD'd for the first time down south, and if I'm honest my internal monologue was probably about the same....

On a positive note, you probably kept their salvagers busy for an hour or so cleaning up all the wrecks.

Anonymous said...

You are quite right about a learning experience...I can remember people saying " oh I thought that rot was for noobs, I didn't think I would get podded with my snake implants"..makes you wanna reach through the voice comms and choke em sometimes. Either way sounds fun, I was just outside a DD grid when it went off waiting to engage a fleet while in the vale and all the carnage of a DD..holy cow. Closest I have ever been.