The call for a fleet op was out. Timers on some of our reinforced towers would be ticking down soon and the enemy was expected to show up and contest the systems to destroy the towers.
There was to be an alpha fleet as the main force and a Drake fleet in support.
Having fitted out a couple of Drakes to the new microwarp drive fleet standard in Mittaningrad, I opted for the Drake fleet. My Drake skills are excellent relative to the skills required for a Maelstrom.
One of my fleet Drakes
Both fleets formed up at the local station and waited for orders to move out. There were, between the two fleets, over 400 ships.
Ships crowded into a station bubble
We meandered about there for a while until finally the orders to move came.
Secret destination after the break!
We were going to 92D-OI… which I guess isn’t secret at all, since it was in the title.
Target for Tonight
This was part of the mining tower war that I mentioned in my previous post. We had towers in and around that system which had been put into reinforce mode and which would be coming out soon. It was expected that Raiden and allies would show up to take out those towers. So we were there to stop them.
We rallied in a station bubble at 92D-OI and started our vigil.
As part of the Drake fleet doctrine, we had been given a leader to follow. To pass the time, most of us began following him and we began to move like a school of fish around the inside of the bubble.
Drake formation down
And we flew…
Drake trails
And we flew some more…
Around the sunny side again
We did get called out to help a group that was trying to catch up to the fleet. A gate camp had been set up after we passed so we flew back a couple of jumps to clear their bubbles. The campers themselves fled, having lost a single ship for a couple of kills.
Bubble shot
A mass of missiles took care of their deployed warp bubbles. My missiles, like most of the missiles fires, ran harmlessly down range as the weight of shot destroyed the bubbles very quickly.
Then it was back to 92D-OI where we patrolled for a while longer. We flew out of the POS bubble and around and back and forth and had a couple of Drakes fight each other for a bit to see who could break the whose tanks.
Finally, after about two hours had passed, it was reported that all timers had run down and that all towers had been repaired and refueled. The enemy had failed to show and the fleet was to stand down.
We made our way back to Mittaningrad, blowing up the deployed bubbles the gate campers had dragged out again along the way.
And so I did make it to a fleet op again, but remain without a single ship kill. My missiles didn’t even hit the warp bubbles.
I did, however, spend some of my fleet time with Fraps running and was able to put together a movie.
Granted, it is just our Drakes flying around, but it is kind of nice to look at at least once. The music is “Below the Asteroids,” which is part of the EVE Online sound track.
I particularly like the segment that starts at about 1:15 that is a close up shot of the Drake formation. I wish I had taken more clips like that.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I found this kind of thing pretty discouraging – I would fly around for hours and have no discernable impact on any outcome. Why was I here?
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No rigs?
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@Toldain – That is certainly one critical aspect of PvP based action. It does depend on the other side showing up to play.
@Werit – 3 Rigs shown in that fit, at about 10 o’clock on the fitting circle, two CCC rigs and one shield extension rig. You need the CCC rigs to make the Drake perma-MWD capable.
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Ah, whoops, missed those. My Drake is just of the tanky sort, was fitted for Sleepers.
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Even though nothing really happened, posts like this make my resubscription finger itch every single time. EVE just sounds so interesting when you read about it. But then I realize I wouldn’t be able to figure out what to do with my low-skill characters, that I’d be too afraid to leave high-sec because I don’t have the money to replace ships and especially implants, and I probably would end up mining and skilling for a month or two before unsubscribing again.
EVE is one of those games that always sound amazing to me until I play them again. But at least the posts are always entertaining!
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The thing about EVE tactics is that had Goons not swarmed the POS in defense, they would lose the tower and corresponding income.
Sov warfare is often more a battle of attrition. Who will get bored first and stop defending?
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Jargon buster please. I am guessing that an Alpha fleet is a long range sniper fleet designed for high volley damage. What is the drake support fleet for?
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@Wilhelm, actually, I had that experience sometimes when the enemy did show up, and I still didn’t get any kills, because the ships popped too fast. Or because I died too quickly.
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@mbp – Alpha fleet, which I am going to guess comes from the US Navy concept of Alpha Strike, is a battleship fleet designed to put out the most damage in the least amount of time. Current Goon doctrine puts that as a specific fit for a Maelstrom as the optimum alpha fleet ship, though there were alpha fits for other ships, including the Drake.
Against White Noise we ran multiple alpha fleets in parallel.
Doctrine has changed for the war against Raiden. Now we put up Drake fleets as well, which are supposed to focus on enemy support ships. Reading the Goonfleet reasoning, I can summarize it best as the view that Drakes are the cockroaches of null sec. They are cheap, plentiful, easy to fly, hit at long range, and annoying to kill.
I think this is a matter of us changing to win the war of attrition. Raiden tends to fly expensive ships like the Tengu, and you have to kill a lot of Drakes to offset the loss of a Tengu. Or we just want to awe them with a mass of Drakes on microwarp leaving blue trails wherever they go.
Oh, and just to confuse things, the Drake fleet isn’t just Drakes. There are also logistics ships along which can reinforce shields and capacitors on the fly.
There is, in Goon doctrine, also the “welp fleet,” which is designed to take out a supercapital ship while sustaining huge losses. These are cheap, hard hitting ships. I have a Hurricane battlecruiser that is ready for welp fleet action.
The Goons have some deep thinkers working on fleet doctrine. This is my “at a glace” view of the world. Somebody can probably explain it more accurately.
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The clip truly is pretty. The music you used fits it nicely.
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Interesting stuff Wilhelm.
I find the Goons a strange enigma. They come across as a mix of high level strategic thinking and infantile schoolboy crassness. I did a bit of Googling about Whelpfleet after reading your post and it seems to be a very clever and successful initiative. Unfortunately you cannot get very far reading anything from the Goons without tripping over some objectionable language or content. An insightful tactical piece on Goonwiki will be punctuated by homophobic references for example.
I guess that some of this is just for show but the unpleasant attitude seems so endemic to Goon culture that I just cannot warm to the organisation. I admire Goon tactics and strategy but I really don’t like the Goons themselves.
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@MBP: That is by design. The Goons are not all that interested in recruiting ‘randoms’. They seek to recruit SA forum members, and in that world their overall attitude is the norm.
Also trying to maintain the perception that the Goons are all just random idiots is a strategic decision. While the average cog may be just that, the people who actually run the Goons are anything but (or perhaps are just master-level trolls, which is itself an art)
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On the Fly Reckless podcast (episode 67 I think) there is an interview with The Mitanni, chief of the Goons, where he talks about the advantage of having several thousand members of an alliance. They not only get people with different interests in the game, but some that are very good at what they do. The same goes for TEST, which is kind of the Reddit version of the Goons. I understand that hey have Android apps for certain game tasks.
He also mentions the importance of enjoying hanging out with the group with whom you play. EVE can get very boring very quickly if you do not make those social bonds.
The same can be said of a lot of older games as well, like EverQuest and MUDs. Grinding isn’t fun… or you wouldn’t call it grinding. But hanging out with friends and grinding can be.
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Just wanted to let you know that even though your FRAPS isn’t of anything big and flashy, it had me glued for the entire duration as I watched the swimming drake fish.
Sometimes the video doesn’t have to be all about explosions and such. Thanks for putting that out there for people to look at.
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Yeah, I never managed to make the social bonds despite 3+ years of trying to play. I so wanted to enjoy that game.
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