So, today was another 10% tidi slugfest involving a series of unfortunate escalations culminating in CCP proving once again they have almost no clue how to balance a game, let alone make it function. Over 100 hostile carriers and dozens of hostile supers escaped our thousand-strong subcap horde via a crashed node, which seems to be the only strategy the N3zis have that works consistently. As a consolation prize we got to execute about 50 or so tech 3 ships.
Original broadcast from Reagalan
Well, on the upside, I got into my first big fleet action of the Curse campaign. A battle brewed up in E-YJ8G when hostile capital ships were tackled. The wider story is available here.
On the downside, things followed the now predictable course of events.
We poured subcaps into the system to stomp the carriers. N3 dumped reinforcements in to save carriers. We dropped dreadnoughts in to push up the damage. The dropped in super caps. The numbers in local kept climbing, not helped by the fact that we’re still abusing the whole drone assist thing with our Dominix fleet doctrine. Time dilation, which wasn’t so bad when there were only 600 people in the system dropped to the usual 10% when the number passed a thousand and our Dominix fleet got on grid and joined the fight. Somewhere past 1200 people in local the system started behaving like it did at KW-I6T, with people doing things without actual result. And, well, the whole thing went poof on us.
Yeah, that is never a good sign.
Also on the downside list, just before the system went non-responsive my shiny new Dominix got called as primary by the hostile carrier FC and I started taking fire.
Taking Bouncer fire
I actually called for armor and the fleet logi team started to reinforce me. But in the lag, it took the hostiles a while to all focus on me, so it looked like I had been saved for a bit and the logis moved on to the next call. And then fire began to rain down on me and my ship wasn’t long for the battle. Look at all those Bouncer drones hitting me.
If only they had waited another minute, because once they got my pod targeted, the system started misbehaving. My pod took dozens of hits without registering any damage.
The invincible pod
Semi-safe and the system clearly headed for a fall, I used my remaining time to move the camera around and take screen shots. I am ever the tourist. Then the error message above came up and most of us were thrown out of the game. After that it was the wait, staring at my portrait on the new login screen, for the system to recover and let us back it.
Looks dramatic in Black & White
Once in, some passer-by in an Ares popped my popped my pod, which at least saved me the trouble of flying home. Then it was time for a break at my end. Dinner was at hand and I was figuring out where to file for my reimbursement. But the fight went one, at least on a smaller scale. As noted in the initial quote, we got to pop some tech 3 ships. Then it was working on the withdrawl from Catch back to our home base in Curse.
While the result of piling people into a system isn’t much of a shock at this point… Garth was mocking null sec about it recently… I am starting to wonder if it could start being an official “how to save your tackled capital ships” strategy.
Anyway, as noted, I had time to take some screen shots. Lots of capital ships and our Dominix fleet, along with the new graphics for the various forms of warp bubbles. All after the cut.
Snapshots from E-YJ8G.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Isnt it amazing that crashing the game is a legitimate tactic by a coaliton .
LikeLike
Maybe I misunderstood the post, but its CFC who had tackled the caps, and it was also CFC who was mostly responsible for the node crash (more people/drones), right?
LikeLike
@SynCaine – Both sides continued to escalate. We dropped in with ~200 Domis, adding to whatever the Russians already had in system. PL dropped in supers, we dropped in dreads, the Russians showed up with more, NC put a tech III fleet into the system. Lots of people showed up, the CFC itself being in the minority.
The point is that, for those with the caps bubbled and on the line, escalating the fight by upping the ante (supers on field is like dropping catnip) ends up being a winning defensive strategy if they bust the node. And their carriers and super carriers put a LOT more drones on grid than our Domi fleet. Advantage: N3… unless you consider that they lost something like 48 billion in fighter bomber drones according to the TMC article I linked up in the post.
In hindsight, DBRB’s biggest mistake at Asakai wasn’t that he committed too many capital ships, but that he did not commit enough to ensure a node crash!
I am not saying it was a deliberate move up until now… but you can just bet that both sides are working out how they can use a node crash to their advantage.
LikeLike