Sometimes there’s the occasional roam that you
classify as “weird”…. A series of events that really don’t happen often, and
that make it worth to undock every day.
Ok, so I came out from Thera and found myself
in an entry point for a carebear pocket. I stated many times before that
hostile intel is my n.º 1 enemy, so I left my backup Brutix just outside the 1st
carebear system and went in with my Tank Brutix.
The ingate of the 1st carebear
system was heavily bubbled! I mean, they had bubbles up to 80km away from the
gate! Heavily bubbled systems mean usually 2 things:
1 - The locals like to have time to dock up
from their ratting/mining activities;
2 – The locals might like to catch outsiders on
the edge of these mega-bubble-clusters, probably from the direction of other
gates or station. To avoid being caught by the locals in this scenario, it’s
important to look for celestials in the opposite direction of existing gates or
station. Warping to a nearby moon on the “back” of the gate, or to an anomaly
situated “up” or “down” might allow you to escape some gatecamp formed up on
the edge of these bubble-Clusters. If no celestials are available, taking a
time to make your own ping might be a good idea.
So ok, there I was inside these
mega-bubble-cluster, but having a MJD, I did not care all that much. Just
activate the MJD and then warp to some random anomaly or station to make myself
known. I just need to be careful to not get tackled in the next 3 minutes MJD
cooldown window.
1st carebear system was empty of any
activity, even if it had around 10 in local. I proceed to the 2nd
carebear system.
As I enter the 2nd carebear system,
I see a Phantasm on the gate at 0km. More important than the ship type it’s
usually who’s the pilot. This happened to be a Verge of Collapse fella that
probably came out from Thera as well. Now, these guys roam mostly in gangs, but
sometimes they do roam “alone” with their links. First of all, I needed to find
out if this fella was alone or not. I did not want to be jumped by 10 Orthrus
or something like that.
This is where EVE standings come into play and
how they can help you. I decided to set his alliance orange standings, so that
I could assess easily how many “orange standing guys” there are in local. He
seemed to be alone as only 1 orange guy was in local.
So this Verge of Collapse fella seems alone…
Oh, the hell with it, let’s engage! As I shoot, he jumps out. I wait for 1
minute and nothing happens, no backup rising into local, nor anything. I jump into
the 1st carebear system and the Phantasm was there waiting for me, kitting
around the gate. I decide to try making best of my local geography knowledge.
Remember that mega-bubble-cluster I talked earlier? Time to make use of it!
The Plan: Warp to the gate with the Bubbles,
apply my web and neut on the Phantasm as he lands on top of me at the edge of
the bubbles, bring in Rtb, MJD on top of Phantasm, apply 2nd web and
2nd Neut and kill it! Couldn’t get simpler!
And so I set the plan in motion, landing at the
edge of the mega-bubble-cluster. The Phantasm follows and lands on top of
me!... But this is where the plan stops working. The Phantasm kites away from
me at around 4000m/s, so when I actually managed to get a lock on him, he was
more than 20km away… it seems this fella was one of those dual 10mn and 100mn
AB Phantasms.
Anyway he was still interested in me and comes
closer. He shoots me a couple times at range, never making much damage and I
try to catch him by overloading my MWD and cutting his passes on me. I actually
managed to web and scram him once, but besides the long point, he had a scram
himself! This was odd… I’m used to fighting Phantasms that have 18km webs, but
a Scram is way more disabling and dangerous for me! Eventually he achieves a
steady 22km orbit on me, and I’m not seeing how my Backup Brutix can help me in
this particular case, so it’s time to bail.
I activate my MJD to teleport myself away,
hoping for him to not realise it and not come to dive in for a Scram passage.
Even if he did, I would not be in terrible danger as I still had a lots of
structure, I could bring Rtb to shove him away, or even use ECM drones to jamm
him. Fortunately he did not scrammed me and I got safe.
He posted in local something along the lines of
“…and ofc you had MJD… well, gf I guess…”. It was indeed a good engagement,
with both sides having problems pinning their respective opponents. On my
behalf, I told him how his scram made the whole job way harder than I expected
and went my way jumping out of system as an “Orange Standing” Navy Brutix lands
on the Bubbles! AAHHA! It seems I bailed at the proper time, just before his
mate arrived!
Now this roam get a bit weirder… As I jump out
the Phantasm pilot convos me and asks “Hey, is this Navy Brutix with you?!”.
I’m puzzled… I reply “No, I thought it was with you instead…”. Phantasm pilot
tells me “No, I’m alone man! Help me out killing him, I’m engaging!”
Hummm… I did saw the Navy Brutix was orange
standings to me, but I did had several local entities sorted orange. Could I
have done a judgement error earlier? I truly did NOT look at his alliance
ticker. My instinct also told me the Phantasm pilot would not be lying or
making some lame trap, so I went back to take a better look.
As I return, the Phantasm is indeed scramming
the Navy Brutix and it does belong to some other alliance that lives nearby, so
I rush forwards to help him. Then suddenly…
CYNO!!!!!!
Oh crap! I burn back to gate and try telling it
to my temporary ally. He manages to kite away from the Navy Brutix just before
a gang of 10 Black Ops Battleships jumps, and I managed to burn back the gate.
Ufff… this was a close one. This roam just got weirder… a Navy Brutix cynoing a
Black Ops Battleship gang, and failing miserably at killing anything.
Considering I’m pretty safe on the gate, I
stick around and wait… I’m sure those battleships are going to stay around for
the whole 10 minutes duration of the cyno in order to protect their mate from
any possible dang… and then the Black Ops Battleships start to MJD off the
bubbles and warping off to random celestials!
Oh really?!...
So… you’re just going to leave that Navy Brutix
of yours strapped to a lit cyno alone? My head starts to fill with
calculations:
1 – Navy Brutix is probably 50km from the edge
of bubbles. If Black Ops Battleships warp in, they’ll be far away, and unable
to provide full support.
2 – I doubt they’ll have more ships to cyno in…
3 – Even if the Black Op Battleships jump out
of system, they won’t be able to go via the cyno again due to 10-15 minutes of
jump fatigue right?!
4 – ENOUGH CALCULATIONS. THERE’S AN IMMOBILE NAVY
BRUTIX THAT HAS JUST BEEN ABANDONED BY “ALLIANCE MATES”!!!! What more could I
possibly want?! Who cares if it has a cyno lit?...
I finally get myself to go full speed ahead
towards the Navy Brutix with both my ships, and the Phantasm that was swooping
around also joins in. The Navy Brutix dies abandoned by his peers who were
still cloaked up around the system.
OK… so what the hell happened there? I think
all those Black Ops Battleships got nervous about just “sitting there” after
failing the gank. I even go further and say they might have been afraid of a
Verge of Collapse gang to be called in and kill them while they were sitting
inside the bubbles. Anyway, they decided that protecting their bait was not
worth the risk, allowing me and the Verge of Collapse guy to score a nice kill,
thus ending one of the weirdest situations I had with my Dual Hull Brutix.
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